Louisville Basketball Postgame Show (with Tony Vanetti) - at Pittsburgh

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Episode Transcript

(00:03):
The Louisville basketball game just ended,and now it's time for you to react.
It's the Louisville basketball postgame show onSports Talk seven to nine. Game.
Now here's Nick Coffee. Nick Coffeeis in Indianapolis with his kids and
his family. So I drew theshort straw of having to watch a Louisville

(00:24):
basketball game. I will be informingHR I will be filing a hostile work
environment issue on Monday for having mewatch this game. Eighty six to fifty
nine is the final score. Louisvilleoutscored in the first and second half.
Pittsburgh is a bubble team and madeLouisville look really bad tonight. There was

(00:47):
a couple of stretches, but basicallythat was it. And I gotta tell
you, you know, John,when you got good friends, right of
course, guys that don't have todo something and they do it anyway,
especially on a Saturday night on theirown time. And that good friend is
Dave Jennings. Dave Jennings, areyou on the phone, sir? I

(01:08):
am on the phones, and Iam wrapping up a homemade pizza from Lots
of Pasta where we have lots ofpasta Louisville dot Com. The lots of
pasta, homemade sauce that's in thefreezer, and of course the Manzarello cheese
and maybe a bourbon, but Iof course space that out so I wouldn't

(01:29):
be on the air at the sametime as having bourbon because I am a
professional, all right, So I'mgonna file a HR violation for hostile work
environment for making me watch the Louisvillegame tonight. Did you get a chance
to watch this game tonight? Eightysix fifty nine. Louisville loses on the
road to Pittsburgh. We watched itand not watch it at the same time.

(01:49):
It's one of those where it's onand it's background noise and you have
hearing and it sounds like basketball,But then you watch it and realize that
you're a uniform and it's really awful. So then you stop looking at it
and watch the fireplace instead and say, hey, it's like it's like basketball,
but it's not really. Yeah,it's it's one of those I wanted

(02:10):
the Kenny Payne thing to work out. I advocated for it because here's what
we thought. So we thought cominginto this after the Chris Mack and everything
and David Paget and all that stuffthat, well, who we're going to
get, Well, Kenny Payne madesense. So here's a guy that is
he's been an assistant with the Knicks, so he's assimilating NBA knowledge, which

(02:31):
is going to help in recruiting.He's with Kentucky and Caliperry, one of
the winning best coaches of all time, and assimilating what Cali Perry does.
And he's a great recruiter. Sowe thought and all of that put together
means great head coach. If youhave a guy that is motivated to not
be the number two guy anymore orthree guy and grab a program by the

(02:54):
throat and say this is my program. I want this. That's the missing
piece, and that's the piece that'snot there with Kenny Payne. We heard
that early on that he wasn't asuper hard worker, and I don't know
if that's true or not. That'sjust the tea lead stuff, and that
that's the part that was missing,that drive, that that Rick Patino thing,
that any successful college basketball head coachthing, and it's okay to be

(03:19):
the assistant coach and make one pointtwo million dollars and I think Kenny Payne,
Kenny Payne, I think he isactually comfortable with that, and it
just I don't think it's not goingto work out. And here's why it's
not going to work out. Therewere two things that happened. I remember
the Florida State game when Louisville played, and this should never and I'm obviously
a Florida State grad but a Louisvillefan, and what I was hearing then

(03:42):
was that Florida State to try tomake the tournament. There was hope at
that point. You can't lose toLouisville. And then Joe Lenardi comes on
tonight and he says, for Pitt, here's where they are. The last
thing you can do is lose toLouisville. And the last thing we want
is the last thing we want isLouisville fans is to hear that our team

(04:03):
is a bad loss for anybody,and that's where Louisville is and that's why
he can't be back next year.That is very astute of you, my
friend. I thought the same thing, and I'm glad you I forgot about
it, but you're exactly right.Joe Lonardi said, that you are the
program where you can't lose. Theother team can't lose at home to you.

(04:25):
Kentucky football used to be that towhere remember how many times somebody in
the SEC would lose to Kentucky andfootball and they would be fired by the
end of the year. That wasthe thing. And now Cardinal basketball is
where we are to where you can'tbe the team that loses. I watched
the game the exact same way.I tried to watch the first couple of

(04:45):
minutes, and actually Louisville was scoringwith them up and down the floor for
the first ten to fifteen points,and then of course Pittsburgh just kind of
took over. But I caught myselflooking on Facebook and just kind of flipping
through Twitter and not watching the game, and I'll like, oh man,
I gotta do this post game.I gotta watch this game. And then
I was like, I'm not watchingthis game. So I did the same
thing. I watched the game.I'd watch it for a couple of minutes,

(05:08):
and I went back down on myphone. Jackie wandered upstairs. I'm
sure she's watching Billionaire or whatever Netflixshow is on, and you know,
left me down with the four catson the couch and why and the couch
the cats even left, like thefour couch cats were all there. They
watched, they watched a little bitof the game, and they're like,

(05:29):
I'm out man, and they leftme and I was there by myself.
Dave and I agree. I thinkthere was like a moment to where people
are like, could they keep himfor the third year? Now? I
think now right right, Well,money wise, you can't. You're gonna
have to spend some money to goget somebody. And again Cronin, I
don't know, he's so expensive.But then I but I saw the guy

(05:53):
that they predicted, the bram andall that stuff, and he's been right
a lot says it is one hundredpercent Cronin, write it down. Uh,
And I don't know. I don'tknow where it's going to go from
there. The part of the problem, David, you and I have discussed
this as nauseum at nauseum is whatcoach can win consistently in this environment in

(06:17):
college basketball, right, I mean, you've got these players that are coming
in for six months and leaving,or if they stay, they're not very
good, or they transfer to anotherschool. So you're cobbling the team together,
an AAU team together every year andlook at Cow's a perfect example.
Yes, seven NBA players seven andthey're they're probably going to be fighting to

(06:39):
get out of the out of thefirst weekend right now. I saw Matt
Jones tweet that the Joe Lonardi didn'thave them in the first uh first sixteen
or whatever it was, so youknow what, see are they gonna be
a five or six seed? Soanother coach, there's no dynasties anymore.
I'm surprised. It is all getout. There's an all time. He's

(07:00):
saying that Yucon's number one. Wethought that after Calhoun left that that place
was going to go away. Andthey're still pretty good. But who that
coach is? It's but it's alltiming and that's why Louisville couldn't make a
move mid season. First of all, you send a message that hey,
that could be you. Two.If you're not good for a couple of
weeks, we're going to fire youmid season. Two. But you also
want to watch all of the tournamentcoaches and it's all about timing. Louisville

(07:23):
got into the ACC because of timing. They were good at the right moment
at the right time when the aSEC was expanding. It wasn't like there
was some lawn drawn out process andthought and some thing tank that was working
this out and Louisville was a teamall along. It was the right time,
right And this may happen this year. It might be muscling, and
it might be whoever that might beNATO's that you know, do the buy

(07:46):
You can always find a guy withpockets to find the buyout. They can
find somebody. But it's all abouttiming. But the bottom line is Louisville
is nobody's bad loss. This programis not anybody's bad loss. And lover
hoot the portal, lover hate andil Well. What that also means,
though, is you can fix itprogram really quick. But Louisville cannot go
into next year with Kenny Payne beingthe head coach trying to sell season tickets.

(08:09):
They're in Valpak now and nobody wasbuying that, so it just can't
happen. It's I don't know whothe guy is going to be. That's
not what I'm paid to do.I just know that Louisville basketball is bigger
than this and better than this,and shouldn't settle for a slow climb back.
Here was a back when we weredoing the show. Politically speaking,
we gave Matt Bevan, you know, the recipe to get reelected. He

(08:31):
didn't follow it. So the recipefor Kenny Payne to get a third year
or even again. We got thesecond year, obviously, but to get
the third year was going to beone. Realize that you made some bad
hires as assistant coaches. It's okayto admit that you're not quite ready to
be a head coach. Rick Patinohad the Ralph Willard guy. Not that
he needed another head coach to tellhim what to do, but Kenny Payne

(08:54):
could have used that kind of coach. He could have used that kind of
coach. So you do that,you revamp this staff and have a couple
of top twenty players lined up.You're the recruiter after all. So if
you want a third year and you'rea really hard worker and you recognize some
things that need to change, thenyou change the staff and you work your
ass off to recruit. And noneof that happened. So the fact that

(09:18):
a thirty year is not going tohappen, and I doubt that it will
isn't our fault, isn't the fansfault, isn't anyone's fault, but Kenny
Paigon. I'm a little sick ofthe because Smith is in that category of
he and there was another coach underDavid Paget or Mac he played at Duke.

(09:41):
He's gonna be an amazing coach.What he played Duke. He might
be, he might right, butI'm so sick of that he played it
Duke Well, who cares that heplayed it? Why does that matter?
Louis's always where you learn how tobe a head coach, and Nolan Smith
might be the reason that this teamlooks a little better. I don't think

(10:01):
it's Danny Manning, but they're youknow, they're down some players. I
get that that's part of it.It had seven scholarship players tonight now.
But that's that's not the problem.And they play hard. And one of
the reasons they play hard is becausethey know that they're also auditioning for their
next team. Possibly. So youknow the players that were stuck playing for
three or four years under a coach, you say, wow, they're giving

(10:22):
up. They don't give up anymorebecause they also know they're auditioning as a
free agent for multiple other programs,and they may stay, they may not,
But I mean give credit. HuntleyHatfield's great, he's working hard.
I mean, Mike James, ifhe's not here, he's gonna make somebody
really happy. Glenn looks good.I know sky Clark was hurt tonight,
but there are some good players here, and there are players. There's enough

(10:43):
players here where the record shouldn't bethree and eleven in the Conference. His
name is Dave Jennings. He's gotlots of pasta, pizza, he's about
to eat, possibly a bourbon.And he's a very good friend to call
into this show and help me outtonight, because Dave and I don't cover
sports anymore, and we are sortof the we're somehow the bench of these

(11:07):
post games. So I appreciate you. Dave. Go back to your lovely
wife, Becky, and I'll seeyou on Monday, all right, brother,
Thanks man, we'll see it.Oh what a good friend again.
Louisville loses eighty six to fifty nineto a seventeen and eight and eight and

(11:28):
six in the Conference. Pittsburgh teamPanthers that will be a bubble team if
they win some games here on theway out, Taylor and Clark were out.
That's a problem, two of yourbest players for Louisville. It wouldn't
have made a difference tonight, Idon't think, because Pittsburgh had Hintson,

(11:50):
which scored forty one points. Idon't know if you put somebody if either
one of those guys could play alittle defense on Hinson, but apparently Louisville
did not. There was some wideopen shots on the perimeter for Pittsburgh.
Forty one points from Hinson, andPittsburgh they looked pretty good. They've got
a couple of road wins that theytalked about on the broadcast. Because again

(12:13):
I don't follow college basketball as closelyas I should, but I have noticed
that most of the elite teams aregonna have some losses. Good teams are
close to five hundred, and eliteteams are six to twelve losses already before
the season is even up. Wehaven't even finished the season and or got

(12:35):
to conference play, or obviously gotteninto the tournament. But John, I
just don't see. And John ismy producer usually with Nick Coffee, and
I appreciate you hanging with me tonight. Brother. But I'm sure the topic
on Nick's show is, Look,the talent just not there for anybody,
and you just can't You can't winconsistently with cobbling a team together every year.

(13:00):
Yeah, it's an interesting era thatwe're living in college basketball, and
it'll be interesting to see which programsover the long run kind of master this
new era of nil and the transferportal and all that kind of stuff.
Well, i'll tell you a bigsign of why college basketball is in big
trouble. The who's the most popularplayer in college basketball right now? John?

(13:22):
It's Kaylyn Clark. And if you'retalking, you're talking about women's and
men's. I don't know that's whereyou were going, but it's Kaitlyn Clark.
That's exactly where you had the rightanswer, Ding ding Ding. So,
a women's player from Iowa is themost popular player in college basketball right
now, no offense to women's basketball, but that's where college basketball is the

(13:43):
most and by far. Like ifyou stopped anybody and say name one college
basketball player, they're gonna say herKaylen Clark, and she is and deserves
to be that popular. But awomen's player from Iowa is the more most
popular player in all of college basketballright now. You when we started warning

(14:07):
about college basketball fifteen years ago,we said, man, they've got to
be proactive. They've had no leadership. It's it's been downhill that people say,
what, Oh, you're just anold man yelling at the sky.
Uh, you're just you're upset.You want it the way it would used

(14:28):
to be. Well, that's notthe way it's gonna be. No.
No, I want I want playersget paid. I think the transfer rule
needs to be controlled a little bitmore. But let's get some calls.
Five seven one seventy nine hundred.Dave is on the line. Five seven
one seventy nine hundred, Dave,how are you, sir? Well?
I mean I'm used to EOL losing, of course, but tonight it was

(14:50):
just it was just pretty much whatI expected. You know, hopefully EOL
will make a change a year end, because if they don't, they're going
to lose what's left of the fanbase. I'm just really agitated with just
a really poor coaching and poor effort. That's what I say. I feel.

(15:11):
Yeah, Dave, how old areyou? Dave? You mind if
I ask how long you've been watchingcollege or UFL basketball. I'm seventy nine,
been following UL football and basketball sincenineteen fifty three. Wow was that
Pat Hickman? Yeah? Sure,Pack Hickman and Frank Camp was a football

(15:33):
coach, and you can tell youI Pack Hickman was. He was a
good basketball coach. But boy,he was a sorry athletic director. I
mean he was just he was terrible. And let me say something else about
UL football. For decades, thelife of the UFL football program was hanged

(15:56):
by a thread, if that ifthat much. I mean as late as
nineteen eighty they even talked about deemphasizing football. Of course, all that
changed when Schnellenberger came in. Butyou know, I don't like if you
go back to the early fifties,I'd say U of L and Florida State
and maybe if you're throwing Boise State, those are the schools that have improved

(16:19):
in football more than anybody else.Because the football program at u of L
for decades under Camp and others weretreated like a like a redheaded stepchild and
Camp listen. Until nineteen sixty five, Frank Camp only had two full time

(16:40):
assistants. And how can you recruitwith a head coach and two full time
assistants. And there was a guyout in Indianapolis. I think his name
was Rudy Mueller. He really helpedU of L get a lot of players
out of the Indianapolis area. It'sjust you know, and now tell you
the truth. I think we livedin the golden age of college basketball,

(17:03):
which was I say seventy nine withthe Bird in Magic National Championship and then
Louisville, Indiana. Kentucky had beenalways been good, but that run until
twenty ten ish was the run ofcollege basketball. And the problem with college
basketball is that they're run by theNC DOUBLEA, which has no leadership,
and college football gave the middle fingerto NC DOUBLEA twenty years ago and now

(17:26):
there are billions and billions and billionsof dollars a year in college football.
The numbers Kentucky next year will mostlikely because they're atting Texas and Oklahoma,
Kentucky will get one hundred that's they'reestimating one hundred million dollars from the TV
contract alone. College basketball can't touchany of that, and football is king,

(17:51):
and so all your money needs togo into football. And I don't
know what they're going to do withthis Louisville basketball program day. But I've
only watched since I was nine yearsold and Daryl Griffith pulled me in and
Denny Crumb, but I know PatHickman, I know he won an I
T when it was more of importantof a tournament than hensible tournament. Uh.
And I've been and I loved howthey grew from just a bunch of

(18:14):
gravel parking lots and some you know, some some classes over at U of
L an Athletic Department was a jokeand into what it is today. And
you know, George had a lotto do with that. Denny Crumb built
that place, George took it offand and that's my story. But Dave,
I appreciate you calling. Have agreat night. We'll we'll stick with
the cards and try to figure thisout at the end of the year.

(18:34):
Brother. Thanks Dave. All Right, five seven one seventy nine hundred is
the phone number. John. Dowe need to take a break or let's
go and hit that first break?Okay, we're gonna take a break,
but I'll i'd enjoy your your calls. Comment on any of the stuff that
Dave Jennings said. I said,or Dave. Dave. Dave the caller
called, but give us a callfive seven seventy nine hundred if you got

(18:57):
any questions or answers for eighty sixto a fifty nine score Pittsburgh over Louisville.
Louisville's on the road, So I'msure Kenny's talking here any minute,
because they usually get get the pressconference pretty quick and then so they can
get wheels up and back to Louisville, which should be a very short flight,
and they should be back any minutenow. But Louisville loses tonight on

(19:18):
seven ninety Sports Talk seven ninety,Tony f ninety filling in for Nick Coffee
back after this, all right,we are back Sports Talk seven ninety talking
post Gabe University of Louisville Fighting Cardinalsgo. They go down twenty seven to
twenty five points loss. I lostcount towards the end there to pop on
here and do the show. Theylost to Pittsburgh on the road, which
is a bubble team according to JoeLonardi, and as Dave Jenny's brought up

(19:42):
earlier in the show, he said, you know you've become now where Joe
Lonardi says, Pittsburgh. Here's howthey get into the tournament. You can't
lose to Louisville at home, right, So that now Louisville is the team
that you can't lose. You can'tlose to I mean, that's where we
are. We're talking Louisville. Andby the way, Kentucky just finished up

(20:03):
with their win at Auburn. Auburn'sranked thirteenth in the AP. They are
twenty and six and nine and four. Kentucky moves to eighteen and seven and
eight and four in the SEC.Kentucky will probably grab a couple of wins
here at the end, but they'llprobably be a five seed or a six
seed to get in the tournament.And that's no guarantees you make it to

(20:26):
the second weekend. So Kentucky's gottheir problems, and they've got seven NBA
players. They've got a very popularteam. I kind of like some of
their line How do you not likeReed Shepherd and DJ and the Big Z
and Dillingham. Those are very likableplayers. But we're talking Louisville tonight,

(20:47):
and we you know, we talkabout building the brand and how to what
is Louisville's basketball brand now? Youcan't have how many bad coaches in a
row before or that brand becomes DePaulor whatever we have compared it to.
I mean, and how many You'renever going to go back to the twenty

(21:10):
two thousand fans at Young Center.That's never coming back. You might get
it for a game, you know, if you're ranked in the top five
and Duke's ranked in the top five, you know, and you might get
that sellout. But other than that, that's never coming back. We used
to have a salesperson in our officethat he had the upper deck and he
was ahead the first row of theupper upper deck to where it was if

(21:32):
you had vertigo, you couldn't sitin these seats. And he would pay
four thousand dollars for a license basicallya licensing fee donation to the program for
the right to buy those two seatsfor him and his wife. So he
was four grand out before he evenbought a ticket. And that is in
the upper deck, and that wasmostly sold out at that time. So
those days are never coming back.You can believe me or not, but

(21:56):
those are not coming back. It'sbeen too long between success and too many
Louisville fans have just moved on,and college basketball sucks. The good coaches
have left, the good players don'twant to play in your league and don't
play in your league, and playerstransfer. Ellis's a good example. Last
year Star got as many minutes ashe wanted left with the Arkansas. Dude,

(22:19):
Arkansas, and Arkansas has got abetter program than Louisville right now.
You build your base through kids.You know, if you're in the state
of Kentucky, you get to beseven, eight, nine, ten years
old, and what happens, youbecome one or another. I became a

(22:41):
Louisville fan because of Daryl Griffith andDenny Crumb and Joby Hall, which I
became friends with later in life.But he looked like a banker. He
had the glasses and the three piecepolyester. Sued and I said, that
guy looks like a banker. DennyCrumb looks cool, and Daryl Griffith just
did a three sixty dunk, whichI've never seen before in my life.
And the doctors have don'k got meLouisville fan done. So what has Louisville

(23:07):
done basketball wise to build their brand? They haven't. Can't. You got
to build their brand through kids now, and it's even harder now John my
producer tonight. Usually Nick Coffee isin I'm Tony Venetti five seventy one,
seventy nine hundred and usually, Imean, you build it through kids.
But the appetite, even if theybecome good next year, let's say they

(23:33):
start out fifteen and one, it'sstill not gonna you're still you're still gonna
average twelve thousand fans at them atthe most. Yeah, it's interesting the
way that it's hard to really kindof figure out what kids these days,
I guess find interested in the collegebasketball level because a lot of them,
especially the ones that know that theymay be competing at this level, they're
like, oh, this time,compared to a lot of these older guys,

(23:55):
I'm gonna have a chance to makemoney. Which schools bring in the
most money and where can I makethat, you know, and give myself
a shot at the NBA. Soand not that Louisville has you know,
issues with her in ile collective,so to speak, but their focus may
not be on what players from thepast five to ten years were focused on
because it's such a new world thatwe're living in college basketball. Well,

(24:18):
and I will tell you something thatwe don't talk about enough either, is
that I grew up with I mean, Jerry Eves does this show on this
show, on this station. Hewas a McDonald's All American ballard. He
was in the backcourt with Darryl andthe first national championship for Louisville, it
was an all Louisville backcourt. Imean it was from Louisville high schools.

(24:38):
So now if you're any good yoursophomore year, you're gone. You go
to Oak Hill or wherever. Allthese these uh the prep schools, basketball
factories, they call themselves high schoolsand they're gone, So you don't have
a connection. So you don't saythe Wagner kid is playing at Louisville or
wherever. They go to these highschool and then they don't come back to

(25:02):
Louisville. They go to Ohio State, or they go to Kentucky, or
they go to Kansas. They don'tsign with Louisville anymore. And being an
exception, I know he was atLouisville Male High School before he went to
I guess it was Lat lou Mierreup in Indiana before he ended up coming
down to play for the Cardinals.But yeah, you're right. So many
of these guys they go to prepschools because they know that that's where the

(25:22):
biggest names in college basketball are goingto be playing and where the coaches are
going to be focusing the majority oftheir time, especially the Dukes and the
un C's and the UK's and thatkind of stuff. I mean, you
in the eighties, in the lateseventies and eighties, you had top ten
kids in the country. You hadseveral that were playing all over town,
so you had to go. Youwent. You showed up on a Tuesday

(25:45):
night to Seneca to watch Tony Williamsor Tony Kimbrough. You watched Felton Spencer
at Eastern. Oh oh wow,Rex Chapman is in town with Apollo to
play the l T. I mean, this happened on a regular basis,
and all of a sudden, nowall those players aren't going to a high
school. So it takes again someluster away to your college team. Because

(26:07):
the local heroes don't stay or aren'tstars. You don't know who they are
anymore. You don't know that there'sstars at sophomore year. They end up
leaving and you're like, oh,that guy's from Louisville. You're like,
oh, some guy gets drafted twelfthoverall in the NBA and you're like that
guy with the Louisville or he grewup in Louisville. That's part of the
problem. And Tony, I wantto ask you this. I want to

(26:29):
talk about apathy real, real quick, especially with the Louisville fan base.
I know you're somebody who back inthe day, I've heard stories about you,
especially when Louisville would play Kentucky,of you making yourself physically sick during
games like that if the result didn'tgo in your way Louisville's way. I
feel like a lot of that,and not that anybody wants to be that,
you know, into it's where theyare making themselves sick. But it

(26:52):
feels like the emotional impact of thesegames it hasn't been there for years,
now, years years. I tellthe story all the time about uh.
I guess two thousand and eight ornine, We're doing the show and Louisville's
buzz is coaching at Marquette and louiswas playing Markette on a Tuesday night and

(27:14):
Dave Jennings and I are doing theAfternoon Underdogs and we would, we'd bring
up that game. A game isat seven point thirty tip at Marquette,
and let me tell you something.It is three hours of full phone line
straight because people are losing their mindsand everyone cannot wait for seven o'clock.
Now people are like, oh,just cart Louisville plays tonight. It is

(27:37):
completely flipped. It's completely flipped.I mean, look at I mean even
the look. I don't care ifyou're a little fan or not. Kentucky's
the number one program of all timeand they're having trouble selling tickets to RUP
if it's not a huge game.Is Scott still on the phone? John
he is? We'll go ahead andgo to Scott right now. All right,
let's go to Scott. Scott,you're on brother. Hey man,

(27:59):
you guys have touched on all thepoints. Man. It's like there was
a time when Kentucky High school,Louisville High School basketball especially was top notch.
Man. They let these players escape, man, you know, starting
with Jeff Lamb going to Virginia backa long time ago. But you know,
you all hit it right on thenail on the head when you said
then you were leaving. And Ithink when they left, when they lost

(28:22):
Jurige, when they took Jurorige awayfrom the University of Louisville and Denrick Pettino
followed them whichever way it went there. Uh, that was the worst decisions
that could ever have been made there. I don't care what anybody thinks when
you get rid of the number oneAD in the country, and you see
what he did for our all ofour programs at the University of Louisville.

(28:45):
Man, I don't even watch Louisvilleanymore. I didn't even know they played.
I was going to bet on them, but I checked to see where
they were at and the game hadalready end. Because I don't care about
them. And I hate that,man, I really do. I hate
that. It sucks. Well,listen, you know what they stole from
you? Winter like my winter?It was like that was my winter.

(29:07):
I grew up as a kid inwith a ten inch black and white television.
I used to plug in and Louisvillegames were on WDRB and I used
to watch. I wouldn't miss asecond of a Louisville game growing up watching
on a black and white TV,and that was my routine. So at
when it got to be January andFebruary. College basketball consumed my life and

(29:30):
now I don't have that. It'sover. I don't I destroyed the winter.
Yeah, they've destroyed it. They'vedestroyed college basketball, and not some
old guy yelling at the sky.I warned people about this fifteen years ago.
The best players don't want to playin your league, and once you
it's is in a warning sign whenthe best coaches in the league with the
biggest name say yeah, I couldstill coach ten years, but I'm not

(29:53):
coaching in this era. I'm out. It's horribly disgusting. They've destroyed basketball.
Thanks guys, see you man,see Scott, have a safe night
tonight. Man. I hate tobe like that, but that is the
reality of it. I remember beingon CHS TV with Matt and a guy

(30:15):
named Greg Doyle. He writes inIndianapolis, and I said, hey,
we've got to keep an eye collegebasketball is in trouble. And he called
me he I think he's called mea simpleton or whatever. He said.
Greg was like, well, ifyou think that, then you're not very
smart. And I was like,oh okay, but Greg Doyle is how
often you've interacted with him, Tony, but he is he is a different

(30:36):
kind of personality. He's a differentcat, that's for sure. And I
don't even know him. It wasthe first time he was in a little
old box and we were interviewing him. He was wherever he was. He
wasn't even Indianapolis at the time.He was. He was a national writer
for Yahoo or whatever. And Isaid, look, college basketball needs to
figure this out. Uh. Andhe was like, well, you know,
you're not very smart. That's nothappening. And I'm like, yeah,

(30:56):
yeah, it is. Uh.And it's hard to disguise it when
you're in Kentucky because you draw acircle around it. Look, I'm a
big high school wrestling fan. Mykid wrestled eight for eight years. I
love the sport. I think it'sthe greatest thing in the world. But
I understand no one watches wrestling likeno one watches wrestling, No one goes
to the wrestling matches. I loveit, but I understand that. But

(31:19):
I'm in that little bubble, right. So the problem is you're in Kentucky.
It took you longer to figure itout because you were. It was
disguised as oh, well, westill care about it here, man,
it started falling off years. It'sit's college basketball has been falling off for
ten fifteen years, and I don'tknow how you get it back unless Rick
Patino said the other day in atweet, he said, look great,

(31:42):
if they want to sue him,get a union, then we can make
them employees and we can give themcontracts and they have to stay at the
school two or three years. Imean, that's that's that's maybe something they
can do. But still, thebest players aren't going to play in n
Cuba. The best players aren't goingto play in this league. They are
going to go to the league orthey're gonna just skip or go to Europe.

(32:04):
They're not gonna play. And thenokay, so you talk them in,
they go, they go to Hey, they go to college for one
year. For one year. Thatteam at Kentucky, Yeah, they're a
national championship team in two years.If you kept that lineup for the next
two years, they win the title. But they're not. That team will
disband at the end of the yearand Kyle will get a new team next

(32:27):
year. Maybe Reed stays, Noway, DJ stays, I mean,
they're all gonna go. And that'sthat's part of the problem, all right,
So we'll take one. We'll takeanother break if you want to get
in before we get out of here. Need you to call now five seven
to one, seventy nine hundred.It's Sports Talk seven to ninety postgame Show.
Louisville loses again double digit on theroad to Pittsburgh. Back after this

(32:49):
on Sports Talk seven ninety. SportsTalk seven to ninety postgame Show, Louisville
loses double digit on the road toPittsburgh. No surprises there. They started
out on fire. And I reallyfeel for the sportscasters and these people that
cover this team that have to breakdown the games because I lost so much

(33:10):
interest in trying to figure out whyLouisville is bad or what is why is
it? Why is Pittsburgh being effective? I used to do that on every
game for twelve years, but Ihad Rick Patino and Denny Crumb, so
it was a little bit it wasmore fun. But I'm halfway watching this

(33:30):
game and I'm like, dude,who has who? It's just unusual punishment
to try to figure out. Look, Louisville's just undisciplined. They look like
they're moving the ball and they playas a team for so short of a
period of time during the games andthe other teams, and you could see
when the air is out of theball, like you could see when the

(33:51):
effort is leaving. You could physicallysee it on the floor. You have
to be blind not to see whenLouisville's like they're barely running up and down
the field court, they're barely lookingfor rebounds. People could say, no,
they gave great effort tonight. Nothey didn't. There were stretches where
they were just like whatever, andthen they were like, well they can.
They scored in this stretch. Youknow why, because Pittsburgh just stopped

(34:14):
playing defense. I mean, it'sjust come on, Louisville. The end
result again, I only want totalk about it, but Taylor and Clark
were out. That's huge. Sevenscholarship players. I get it. It's
on the road, Pittsburgh that theZoo is a tough place to play.
Blake Henson, the kid for Pittsburgh, gets forty one points twenty seven minutes

(34:37):
into the game. Hinson for Pittsburghwas outscoring Louisville's entire lineup. We got
off on a general conversation about basketballand all that I don't know. No
one has any answers for Louisville.I don't have any answers. I will
say this, I'm not letting KennyPayne off the hook, but I don't
know who can consist win in collegebasketball. What coach could consistently win in

(35:02):
college basketball anymore? Cobbling teams together, it's gonna be a miracle. Connecticut's
now done it for two years ina row. Congratulations, But it's just
gonna be tough in college basketball.Is losing the college football so much on
a consistent basis it is it's noteven funny. And at some point the

(35:25):
Power five basketball teams are just goingto cut the throat of the NCUBA and
they're gonna say, we're taking thetournament. We don't care about the nc
DOUBLEA. You can have baseball andvolleyball and soccer, which are great sports,
all that great sports. But youcan have those in softball, whatever.
But basketball is going to control theirown tournament. Football flipped off the

(35:49):
NCUBA over twenty years ago and havekept every cent from their games. They
don't pay the NCUBA a damn dime. How are they doing? Hmmm,
Johnny, thank you for hanging withme tonight, dude, no problem.
It's a pleasure to be here.No matter how terrible this team is.
It's it's been an interesting ride overthe past I guess a year and a

(36:09):
half working with Nick and seeing thedownfall of this Louisville program and the the
imminent demise of Kenny Payne. Iwant to ask you this one thing,
Tony, before we close this thingout. If you were picking Louisville's next
head basketball coach and they decided tomove on this offseason, who's your top
choice? Oh, I break thebank with Cronan. He's I've watched him

(36:31):
as an assistant with Rick Patino,then he went to Cincinnati, went to
a National Championship ship game with UCLA. The guy can coach, he knows
his He actually no, he's angry. I want an angry coach. I
want someone that's going to come inand bust somebody's ass. Everything. He
said in his press conference a coupleof weeks ago. You saw that where
Cronin said, he said, youknow what, these the guys on the

(36:52):
bench don't even know the score ofthe game, Like these kids have changed.
But I want Cronan. That's it. I don't know the whole list.
Is the Alabama guy available? Canwe get that guy? He's pretty
good. I don't know if he'srealistic. And I says about Mick cronin
his buyout is massive, and Iknow you don't really track all that kind
of stuff the way he probably usedto. But the big names that most

(37:14):
people, especially Nick, that hetalks about the most are Eric Musselman down
at Arkansas and know he's not havingthe best season. He's had a lot
of great years, but this seasonin particular hasn't been too good for him.
Also, Jerome Tang at Kansas State. It's only a second season there,
but he's done a lot of goodthings with the program with a lot
less resources. And then there's afew other names that like Chris Beard.
Obviously it's a wild card because wedon't really know his situation being at Old

(37:37):
Miss plus hiring somebody like Chris Beardwe all know would be kind of a
risk in and of itself, justbecause even though he got acquitted on all
of those charges that you know hehad going on back when he was in
Texas and he was let go,you still don't really know why, Like
if he truly. I mean,I guess you have to just assume that
it didn't happen because he was acquitted. But at the same time, you

(37:58):
kind of it's kind of a riskfor Louisville if you take somebody like him,
because you don't want to be inanother situation where if things go south
it's because of something that the coachwas doing wrong, like you've had in
the past, you know, tenor fifteen years. It feels like fifteen's
a bit of a stretch, butthe last ten years, here's the deal.
How important is it to you?And then listen to listen to these

(38:21):
words carefully. This is the mostimportant hire of Josh Hurd's career in life,
and it's the most important hire inU of l basketball history. Is
it has to be it. Hehas to hit something to where they get
the fans back and they start towin in some sort of way, in
some sort of way. I feltthe same way after Cragthorpe and Tom brought

(38:45):
in this lifetime assistant named Charlie Strong, and we're all like, Okay,
what do we got here? Andit was the most important hire at the
time for college football. He gotLouisville in the ACC, but it was
the most important to hire for Juricheright, so it was the most important
and timing for U of L football. This is the same way for basketball.

(39:07):
You can't go for your third David. I include David Pagett there because
that was a decision you made DavidPaget the interim coach, which was I'm
sorry, I like David a lot. That was a humongous mistake. You
had three possible NBA players on thatdamn team and you flushed it down the
toilet. And then Mac I thoughtwas a good coach, but end up
imploding and this and that and nowKenny Payne, You're gonna go for number

(39:30):
four. No, you got tostop the bleeding. Now. This will
be the most important higher in Uof L basketball history because they've got to
fix it. Yeah, this isgonna be the higher that has to bring
the fan base back, because ifnot, then I know a lot of
people say this, you kind ofbecome the next Indiana And I'm an Indiana
fan and I've dealt with it forthe past. I mean, I guess
my entire life really since I've beena fan, They've been kind of struggling

(39:52):
trying to get out of the depthsof where they were. But Louisville doesn't
want to become that. No inIndiana's such as I don't understand Indiana because
that's where basketball players come from NewYork, Indiana, California, Texas.
But Indiana high school basketball on anygiven Tuesday night or Thursday night whenever they
play. I mean, you getfive thousand people at a when you when

(40:14):
there are Indiana high schools getting morepeople in the arena than Louisville basketball high
schools. I mean, come on, this where basketball players come from.
I can't, I can't. Ican't imagine why. I use stays stays
in the mediocre category. But you'reright, Louisville's there. Go ahead and
wrap this thing up all right,man, Thanks for everybody joining me.

(40:37):
If Tony Venetti Nikoffee, you'll beback for the next postgame show. And
John, I think you should alsofile with HR. Having to do these
shows or watch U L basketball,it makes for a hostile work environment at
iHeart give us some hazard pay,buddy. I'll see you man. Thanks
John, everybody, good night,seven ninety